Now you may be wondering why it is that you shuffle Emrakul, the Aeons Torn into your graveyard if you mill it, but you don’t get to draw a card if you mill your Solemn Simulacrum. It’s pretty simple; they’re a different breed of trigger. Simulacrum has a ‘graveyard from the battlefield’ trigger, meaning it only works if it goes to the graveyard from that specific zone. Meanwhile, Emrakul has a ‘graveyard from ANYWHERE’ trigger, meaning it’ll fire off in the graveyard no matter how it got there.

There are also things like Blightsteel Colossus, which are different from things like Emrakul and Vigor in the sense that they don’t trigger at all. Triggers, as you hopefully know by now, always include the words “When”, “Whenever”, or “At”. Colossus doesn’t have a trigger, he has a replacement effect, worded as ‘If SOMETHING, instead SOMETHING ELSE’. While Vigor and Hostility and Emrakul and friends will go to the graveyard and wait patiently to be put back where they go, Blightsteel doesn’t have to make that detour. He never touches the graveyard at all; he goes directly to the library. Do not pass Go, do not collect 200 dollars.

Where this really gets interesting is when someone uses Phantasmal Image to copy Emrakul. Now many people will mistakenly think that the Image makes them shuffle the graveyard in because the Image was Emrakul when it last existed on the battlefield. However, abilities worded with “graveyard from anywhere” will trigger specifically from the graveyard, where the Image no longer has that ability. So only Emrakul’s owner will shuffle up while the Image will lie peacefully in the undisturbed graveyard of its owner.

Today’s Rules Tip written by
Trevor Nuñez, Level 1 judge from Roswell, NM